Throughout the evolution of the modern world economy, new models of productive efficiency and business organization have emerged-in Britain in the nineteenth century, in the US in the early (and perhaps late) twentieth century, and in Japan in the 1980s and 1990s. At each point foreign observers have looked for the secrets of success and best practice, and initiatives have been taken to transmit and diffuse. This book looks in detail at 'Americanization' in Europe and Japan in the post-war period. A group of distinguished international scholars explore in depth the processes, the ideologies, and the adaptations in a number of different countries (the UK, France, Italy, Japan, Sweden, Germany) and different sectors (engineering, telecommunications, motor vehicles, steel, and rubber). The book is rich in historical analysis based on careful research. This provides the basis for informed and subtle theoretical analysis of the complexities of the diffusion of business organization and the powerful influences of Americanization in this century. It will be of compelling interest to historians, social scientists and business academics concerned with the dynamics of economic and corporate growth, industrial development, and the diffusion of productive and business models.

Index:

Chapter 1: Introduction: Americanization and Its Limits: Reworking US Technology and Management in Post-War Europe and Japan
PART I: EXPORTING THE AMERICAN MODEL?
Chapter 2: Americanization: Ideology or Process? The Case of the US Technical Assistance and Productivity Program
Chapter 3: Transplanting the American Model? US Automobile Companies and the Transfer of Technology and Management to Europe after the Second World War
PART II: REWORKING US TECHNOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT: NATIONAL, SECTORAL, AND FIRM-LEVEL VARIATIONS
A: BRITAIN AND SWEDEN
Chapter 4: Americanizing British Engineering? Strategic Debate, Selective Adaptation, and Hybrid Innovation in Post-War Reconstruction
Chapter 5: Failure to Communicate: British Telecommunications and the American Lesson
Chapter 6: Creative Cross-Fertilization and Uneven Americanization of Swedish Industry: Sources of Innovation in Post-War Motor Vehicles and Electrical Manufacturing
B: FRANCE AND ITALY
Chapter 7: A Slow and Difficult Process: The Americanization of the French Steel Producing and Using Industries after World War II
Chapter 8: Remodelling the Italian Steel Industry: Americanization, Modernization, and Mass Production
Chapter 9: Mass Production or 'Organized Craftsmanship'? The Post-War Italian Automobile Industry
C: GERMANY AND JAPAN
Chapter 10: The Long Shadow of Americanization: The German Rubber Industry and the Radial Tire Revolution
Chapter 11: The Evolution of the 'Japanese Production System': Indigenous Influences and American Impact
Chapter 12: American Occupation, Market Order, and Democracy: Reconfiguring the Japanese and German Steel Industries after World War II

About the author:

Jonanthan Zeitlin is Professor of History, Sociology, and Industrial Relations at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he is also a co-director of the European Union Center. He has been a consultant on industrial and labour market policy for the International Labour Organization, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, and the Greater London Council.; Gary Herrigel is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, USA.